


Creatures of the Night

by TheJakeHolmesVersion



Category: Metallica
Genre: M/M, Midwest, Vampire Hunter AU, yes this is very inspired by supernatural
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJakeHolmesVersion/pseuds/TheJakeHolmesVersion
Summary: Hunting's a dirty job, one Cliff Burton knows all too well. As long as vampires stand in the way of the safety of the general public, he- or, at least, him and every other hunter in the United States- will stand against them....This was cross-posted to my Rockfic account, under the name Richard Nixon. If you go there or if you came from there and you see this same fic, I didn't steal it, it's my own.
Relationships: Cliff Burton/Kirk Hammett
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> first work gang let's goooooooooo  
> like i said in the summary, this was originally posted to my rockfic account, Richard Nixon, so go check out that and the other works i have posted there.  
> anyway enjoy this ;]

He was alone, silent, waiting.

She’d agreed to meet him right here, right now. Never mind that their last two conversations were separated by eight years- just him being back in Bismarck made all the difference. He was only staying for a little while, came back to see his folks; at least, that was all he had said. All he let her in on. By chance they met again, reminisced about the time they spent together all those years ago, and she knew they had to spend some time together again.

And then she was there, and he was in the backseat, and his hand was under her shirt, and she felt cold, unnaturally cold, in a way that people aren’t supposed to feel. He tried not to think about it, tried to keep his mind on pretending to love her long enough to do his deeds.

In between her tongue slipping between his lips he managed to whisper, “I’ve missed you.”

“Oh, Cliff,” she moaned, voice heavy and breathy. “God, you make me feel 17 again.”

“Oh, yeah, that must be something for you. To feel so _young_.” He leaned in closer to the lukewarm body beneath him, guiding her mouth towards his own. “Must feel strange.” Her body was getting warmer, driven by her fervor. Or something like it.

“Not when I’m with you.” She trailed off into Cliff’s mouth, soft lips colliding in a frenzy of passion and lust. He let his tongue slip into her mouth, running over the edge of her teeth, until a sharp point pricked him. There is it, he thought. The cut didn’t hurt much, but it would bleed; he knew it too well. He retreated, hoping to get out of her mouth before she could get a taste of his blood.

Too late, he realized, hearing her softly moan again. “I love the way you taste,” she spoke, voice breathy. Hard though she tried, she couldn’t pull off subtlety very well.

“Maybe I’ll give you a taste of something else later,” Cliff remarked, trying to keep up the ante. 

She put a finger to his lips. “Not now. Come closer,” she whispered. Cliff slid his elbow out, letting himself just lay on the girl under him. She took his neck in her hand and licked it sensually, leaving traces of her lipstick across his skin. He had his leverage; now he needed to be quick. As inconspicuous as he could, Cliff slid his left hand out from under her and to the cavity under the seat. 

Something sharp brushed against his neck. She was getting close- too close. His hand groped blindly over the car’s scruffy carpeting. 

Again he felt the miniscule points on his skin, this time lower, right above his collarbone. His movements grew a little more frantic, his body stiffer. Cliff knew she was about to go in for the kill. Her fangs graced his skin one last time before he found what he’d been searching for, half-jammed under the floorboards underneath the seat.

Cliff shifted toward his right side, leaning into her ear. “Lori, can I say something strange about you?” He asked, trying to still sound aroused. 

Lori smirked, a glimpse of too-white teeth flashing between red lips. “What is it?”

Pulling his hand out from under the seat, Cliff sat up. “You’re very bad at hiding bodies.” 

Lori saw what he’d found underneath the bench, but it was too late then. The stake pierced cleanly through her chest, her pained scream equally as piercing. Cliff winced, not from her screech but from the splatter of reddish-black that spurted from her chest. She was thirsty, judging from the ooze-like consistency of her blood. No matter- she wouldn’t drink again. But she would leave a stain on the leather, and not the kind you’re thinking.

####

“How’d it go, Burton?” Asked Mike Jergen, sliding his colleague a much-earned bottle of Jäger.

“Seduced her, got her in my car, she tried to bite me, I put a stake through her heart.”

“Same old thing, eh?”

“A little better than usual, I’ll admit.” He pried open the bottle and took and swig, but cringed when it hit his tongue.

Mike laughed. “Too hard for you all of a sudden?”

“No, it’s- I hit one of her fangs when we were making out and it bled into her mouth.”

“I bet they dig that. Sex and blood, all at once.”

“That’s how they get you-” Cliff looked around at the bar, then lowered his voice, “-I’ve heard people tell me that when they feed on you, it’s like you get a hit of the world’s best morphine. Just pure ecstasy. And then it leaves you a little out of it, and the next thing you know, you’re being sucked off by a vamp chick who hasn’t drank for over a year.”

“You said you heard this from someone else?”

Cliff squinted annoyedly. “Anyway, she came a little too close to sinking her fangs into my neck.” 

“Why stop her? You could’ve had a taste of that morphine.” At that, Cliff let out a stifled laugh and punched Mike on the shoulder. Shrugging, Mike retorted, “Hey, you brought it up, not me!”

Another man came up to the bar and took a seat beside Cliff. Leaning in close to Mike and Cliff, he said, “The mosquitos are pretty vicious around this time of year.”

“Depends on where you are,” Cliff replied, taking the mystery man’s cue. “What’s going on?”

“I got a call from someone outside St. Paul about a possible den. He said there’s been a rise in disappearances around the Twin Cities. I was planning to go myself, but I got another call out in Lansing-”

“ _Michigan_?” Mike interjected.

“That’s the thing- it’s some Lansing, Kansas. Completely out of my way. What do you say?”

Cliff shrugged. “Still got two weeks before I have to be back in Cali. What’s the client’s number?” 

The man pulled out a folded napkin from his lapel pocket and slid it to Cliff. “I suggest you get there soon. He sounded a little frantic- perhaps they’ve been targeting him.”

“Will do, once I get the blood off my backseat.”

“Good,” the man said as he stood up. “Make sure to take some bug spray with you.” He turned and slid into a crowd of other patrons leaving the bar.

“Well, Burton, I’d come with you, but I’ve gotta get back home too. You’ll be on your own for this one.”

“Ah, I’ll manage. But, if you can, make sure that we haven’t left an obvious mark around here. The last thing I need is to get hunted down again.”

“I haven’t forgotten the incident with William,” Mike said, standing up. “I’m on my way out of here. Stay safe, will you?” 

“Will do. Keep me posted, Mike.”

“You bet.”

And then Cliff was alone again.

Loneliness was par for the course in the world of hunting. The open roads, the empty diners and dive bars attended only in the dead of night, the secrecy, the sheer distance between hunters- it was an intrinsically lonesome lifestyle. The world at large couldn’t ever know about the vampiric population, and therefore couldn’t ever know about the hunters or what they really did. 

And so balancing life with hunting was awkward and difficult, nothing more than an endless string of lies and half-truths, alibis and fake IDs. It was lying to your boss about needing time off because you had to go to Idaho, it was faking hunting trips to stake out dens, it was being forced to break up with someone because they got a little too close to the truth.

Above all, it was living with a weight on your shoulders, responsibility that you could never turn away from; he was the only line of defense against the secret evils of the world. He would hunt for the rest of his life, until he either died or was inevitably murdered by an undead sonofabitch with an unresolved grudge against the world of the living.

But, anyway, he had to call this fellow about an infestation.

The numbers on the napkin were slightly smudged, but were still legible, and bore the area code of the outer rim of towns outside St. Paul. Not that Cliff memorized that sort of stuff; he’d just been to the area enough times to have the area code etched into the back of his head. It was a hotspot for vampiric activity. The line rang for just a second before it was quickly picked up. 

_“Who is this?”_

“My name is Cliff Burton. I was told by someone that you had a-” Cliff looked around the bar again, hoping the phone was far back enough in the corner to not be heard- “vampire problem.”

_“Oh, thank god, you believe me, I thought that guy was lying when he said he knew someone. How soon can you be here?”_

“Well, I’m in Bismarck right now, I need to sleep for a while, and it’ll be about a six hour drive, so… mid-afternoon tomorrow. Will you be alright until then?”

_“I think I’ll live.”_

“Alright, then I’ll-”

_“Wait, what do you look like? So I know it’s you when you get here.”_

“Uhm. I’m tall, I’ve got brown hair past my shoulders and a denim jacket with a rip in the left shoulder.”

_“Okay, thanks. My name is Kirk, by the way. Thank you again.” ___

__“No problem, kid.”_ _

__And then, alone again._ _

__####_ _

__The house stood worn and tired, proudly showing off its wear and tear from years of weather damage and being extensively lived in. It stood in between a group of equally old and damaged houses, all standing in a pretty line on a quiet street on the outskirts of Hastings, Michigan. The sky was cold and dim, reflecting the scuffed beige paint and frosted windows, the odd white pillars supporting the roof above the porch._ _

__Cliff stepped out of his car and stared at the house for a moment. As a precaution, he’d taken a small knife from under the ashtray of his car and slipped it into his pocket. In a way it was redundant, given the number of weapons in the bag on his shoulder, but nevertheless he took it. He strode up to the front door and knocked nonchalantly, as though the neighbors would bother to spy from their curtained windows._ _

__The door opened slightly, stopped by a chain lock. A dark face peered through the crack. The door then shut again, and Cliff heard the faint sounds of locks being undone before it was opened again. The figure behind the door was shorter than Cliff and noticeably shier; he kept his head turned down, eyes hiding behind a mess of curly black hair._ _

__“It’s you,” he- Kirk- said timidly._ _

__Cliff nodded. “Can I come in?”_ _

__Kirk stepped back and let Cliff into the main room before he shut the door again and locked its three- no, four locks. The main room was bare but comfortable, somewhere on the line between minimalist and essentialist. Two armchairs stood with a low coffee table between them. Cliff sat in one of them, placing his bag beside the chair._ _

__“Do you want water, or something?” Kirk asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “You said you drove pretty far to get here.”_ _

__“If you have any beer, I’d like one.”_ _

__The dark-haired man nodded and disappeared to a room behind the sitting room. A moment later he returned with two icy cold cans. He handed one to Cliff and took a seat on the other end of the coffee table._ _

__Cliff took a drink and relaxed his tense muscles. “So…” he began, prompting his client._ _

__“It started two weeks ago,” Kirk spat out. “I was always sure there were vampires in the area, but I never really knew they were here until two weeks ago. There were only a couple then, but then one night there were just a pack of them running around. Since it’s gotten so dark and cloudy they’ve been going around in the daytime, trying to get jobs and stuff. Of course that’s not the problem; the problem is they’re killing people. And they’re robbing stores. And they like to leave dead animals in the middle of roads for the hell of it.”_ _

__For a moment, Cliff stared dazedly, processing everything. “Jeez, they’re… a lot more reckless than usual.”_ _

__“I know. I’ve been watching them for a year and a half now, I think. Even from my limited, very distant observations, I’ve never seen them act like this.”_ _

__“I myself don’t recall seeing this sort of wild behavior in a town as small as this. Large cities, you can get away with some of that. But in a community like this, they’re bound to be discovered sooner rather than-”_ _

__A loud thud emanated from above the ceiling. Cliff stopped mid-sentence, listening intently._ _

__For a moment all was quiet._ _

__Then the sound came again._ _

__Kirk whispered, “Someone’s in the attic.”_ _

__Cliff stood silently and moved to the staircase, standing on the edge of each stair in case one happened to squeak. Kirk followed, holding to the taller man’s shoulder. More dull stomps sounded from the attic. Whoever was up there clearly didn’t have much in the way of common sense when it came to breaking and entering, or they figured the house was empty, which, come to think of it, didn’t negate the first assumption._ _

__At the top of the stairs, Kirk stepped out from behind Cliff and pulled down a trapdoor on the ceiling above the landing. A weathered ladder came with it, the rungs splintered and stained. Kirk held it steady and nodded to Cliff, who ascended it into the must of the attic._ _

__In the attic, dust accumulated in hazy clouds, limiting the visibility in the already dim room. The intruder had heard the trapdoor go down, and for a second when Cliff’s head got above the floor level of the attic he caught a glimpse of a shadow darting behind a piece of furniture._ _

__He stepped off the ladder and onto the wooden floor, unsettling the dust again. “I know you’re here,” he growled. “Come out and face me. I’m only gonna ask once.”_ _

__Another dust cloud rose behind Cliff. The intruder was playing the deception game, but his surroundings had deceived him in the end._ _

__Cliff stood still, waiting for the intruder to move again. They’d finally caught on to the dust, and were trying not to kick it up again while still pacing around their adversary, ducking behind crumpled cardboard boxes and disregarded furniture. Cliff, however, knew that was what they were doing, and rather than make their escape the intruder came face-to-face with a tall shadow holding a knife._ _

__There wasn’t even a moment to react; it went from the space behind a box, to shadow, to knife in their side. The intruder hadn’t counted on someone else being in the house; the helpless dark-haired one, he was supposed to be here. Instead there was this six-foot, muscular yet lanky bastard with a hell of a sidearm._ _

__Fire burned in Cliff’s eyes as he stared down the intruder. Pale green eyes stared back, as did sharp fangs, bared in a grimace of pain. One clawed hand was clasped to their side, trying to keep their wound from bleeding too much. The knife was buried deep in their side; it wouldn’t be fatal, but it would hinder them. That’s all Cliff needed._ _

__“Now get out,” said Cliff, “or I’ll finish the job.”_ _

__The vampire crawled towards the nearby (open) window, still hissing in pain. It pulled itself onto the window ledge and leapt onto the roof of the house next door before jumping off and disappearing behind a row of trees._ _

__In the middle of the room, Kirk poked his head into the attic. “Is- is he gone?”_ _

__“He’s gone, but he’ll be back,” Cliff replied, kneeling next to a spot of the vampire’s blood on the ground. “And he’ll probably come back with a few friends.”_ _

__“Oh.”_ _

__“You’re not safe here. At the very least we should find some sort of motel to stay in for the next night or two.”_ _

__“They want me dead, don’t they?”_ _

__Cliff turned back to the other man. “I may have only known you for ten minutes, but I promise you, I’m not gonna let those undead bastards lay a hand on you. You have my word.”_ _

__Kirk stared back with big, dark eyes. He almost didn’t want to believe Cliff, for no other reason than trust issues, but in the end he simply replied, “Thank you.”_ _

__“Great. Now, do you know how to get a fake identification?”_ _


	2. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What happened, four days ago, was that I was following one, trying to find where they hide out, but he got suspicious and I ran off. I thought I’d lost him, so I went to try to find someone- anyone I knew who could help me. And I ran into this guy, he couldn’t help me, but he said he knew someone who could, and then…”
> 
> “And then…?”
> 
> “He-” Kirk hesitated. “He wasn’t really a hunter. He beat me up and… he drank from me.”

“Why do they want to kill me so badly?”

They were in a rather plain motel room in Woodbury, close enough to the heart of the city and far enough from Kirk’s house to feel safe. Kirk was sprawled out on the one bed in the room (it was the only available room, unfortunately), concern written all over his face. Cliff had been flicking through a small brown journal of Kirk’s, an extensive account of all his observations of the vampiric population in Hastings. 

“Well,” replied Cliff, “we’ve gotta go back a bit. Have you done anything to piss one of them off?”

“Well, uh, I think they’ve been onto me for some time now. That’s probably part of it. What happened, four days ago, was that I was following one, trying to find where they hide out, but he got suspicious and I ran off. I thought I’d lost him, so I went to try to find someone- anyone I knew who could help me. And I ran into this guy, he couldn’t help me, but he said he knew someone who could, and then…”

“And then…?”

“He-” Kirk hesitated. “He wasn’t really a hunter. He beat me up and… he drank from me.” He sat up and pulled back the collar of his shirt, revealing two nasty scars like bug bites above his right collarbone.

To Kirk’s relief, Cliff barely winced at the sight, ghastly though it was. “Can I-?” he asked. Gently, Cliff ran his fingers over the wounds. The scabs were stiff, the skin around them soft and mostly unaffected, save for a few other small marks, which Cliff assumed came from the vampire’s other teeth.

“You said this was four days ago?”

Kirk nodded. “Am I” -the words hitched in his throat- “am I alright? ‘Cause he took a lot of blood out of me.”

“In terms of the amount of blood in your body, you look perfectly fine. Maybe take some iron supplements, but other than that you’re fine.”

“I mean, am I gonna-”

“Become one? No.” Cliff looked back at Kirk’s journal, sitting on the edge of the bed, and back at Kirk. “You don’t know how the vampiric disease works, I take it.”

“No, I still barely know anything. I thought it was just in the taking of blood, it happens somehow.”

“When a vampire sinks its fangs into you, those fangs secrete a kind of venom that their body produces. Most people I’ve spoken to tell me it makes you awfully high,” -Kirk nodded at this- “and so when you’re out of it they take more, since you can’t fight back. In a way it is when they take blood- they take and they give. But just the venom isn’t enough. The disease is really transferred by taking another vamp’s blood multiple times. If you’ve just been bitten, you’ll live.”

“Alright.” Kirk turned his head down.

“Hey. Look at me,” Cliff said, tilting Kirk’s face back upwards. “I’m gonna help you through this, alright?” 

“Yeah,” muttered Kirk. -He’s _definitely_ blushing, Cliff thought. 

Sensing the tension in the room, Cliff changed the subject. “Where did you find the guy who led to me?”

“Who- that other hunter? He found me after I got attacked, and he took me to this bar, and he gave me bandages and shit. It was the Heron Roadhouse, I think.”

“I’ll pay the place a visit, then. You’ll stay here?”

“Yeah, I mean, unless you think I should come with you.”

“I don’t exactly. Given what happened today, they might still be on the prowl for you.” Cliff swung his jacket around his shoulders and halfway opened the door. “Stay safe, alright, kid?” 

“Yeah, sure.”

Cliff locked the hotel door behind himself and stood for a minute in the empty hall. In his mindspace a figure materialized and formed into the shape of himself, and said, “I think he’s into me. Romantically, that is.”

Another figure took shape in Cliff’s mindspace, this one mostly resembling his old hunting partner, James. “What do you mean, ‘you think?’ Of course he is, didn’t you see the way he looks at you?”

“I have, yes, but that could very easily also be introversion and overall awkwardness-”

“You’re in denial, Cliff,” the James-figure laughed. “He is head-over- _heels_ for you, man! Do you not see it somehow?”

“Maybe! I- uh…” The words seemed to disappear from Cliff’s mind altogether. “I’ve never had someone fall _for_ me. Usually it’s the other way around, and then they come around to liking me a bit, but by then they’ve given up and found someone else anyway.”

“Well, like it or not, Kirk’s in love with you.”

“I barely met him, like, three hours ago, and in that time all we’ve done is gotten burgers and discussed vamp activity. For all I know-

“-which you _do_ -”

“-this might just be infatuation and the product of being mostly alone for the last two years.”

“It might be. Or, you might, I dunno, actually be in love with him as well.”

The Cliff-figure sighed, “Maybe,” and then faded out of Cliff’s mindspace. 

It was a coping mechanism of sorts, -perhaps another product of the lonely lifestyle of hunting- a way of passing time on open stretches of road and of discussing internal conflicts that came up. Cliff hadn’t even seen James in two years now, but in his mind he remained the same crazy kid who, stupid as he could be, at least knew how to talk about things. 

But, for now, the visions left, and Cliff was back in the real world, driving down some dingy street towards an equally dingy roadhouse. The facade was low-key, and, based on the curved awning and big windows that went across the front of the building, the space had at some point been an Italian restaurant. 

Stepping inside, the place looked rather inconspicuous, or at least as inconspicuous as a bar can be considered to be. The interior was mostly dim, punctuated by red and blue overhanging lights and dozens of neon signs that dotted the walls. Off in the back some local band was giving a show on a wooden stage, filling the air with soft post-punkish music. Above the stage a few trophy shotguns and taxidermy heads were mounted on the wall, an inside joke of a hint that this was a hunter bar. 

Cliff strode up to the bar and leaned close to the bartender, a tall man with a scar above his eyebrow. “By any chance, do you know anyone here who knows a thing or two about mosquitos?”

“There’s quite a few here,” the bartender half-muttered as he wiped down the bartop. “If I were to put any money on it I’d say at least half of those in this bar right now. What’s your matter?”

“Someone I met today, lives down in Hastings. He’s stumbled onto a den, we think, and he said he met someone here. I assume they would know the area better than I do.”

“Did he come in with a small, scruffy kid?”

“With black hair? Yeah, that’s him.”

The bartender subtly pointed out a man sitting alone near the stage. “I think that’s your guy.”

“Thanks,” Cliff muttered in reply, and slid a fiver across the bar.

The man was perhaps the pinnacle of what Cliff imagined an average hunter to look like: tan Carhartt jacket, heavy boots, perpetual five o’clock shadow, unbrushed, bristled hair. He took note of Cliff’s approach and stood quickly, nodding his head to the side and leading Cliff to a quieter part of the bar where they could talk better. 

As soon as they had sat down at another table the man asked, “How did you find out about me?”

“Um,” began Cliff, startled by the apprehension in the man’s question. “I met someone today who says you found him after he was attacked by a vampire. His name’s Kirk Hammett.”

“Alright. I’m sorry if that seemed rough, but I just have to make sure that you’re not some vamp seeking revenge. My name is Ken Carter,” he said, extending his hand. 

Cliff shook it. “Cliff Burton. And don’t worry, I understand the caution- once another hunter and I were stalked by a particularly angry vamp for six months.”

“ _Six_ months? What the hell did you do to insult him so much?”

“I killed his brother.”

Ken nodded approvingly. “So, I assume the reason you sought me out is- Kirk, was his name?”

“Yep. He’s back at the hotel right now.”

“Good, good. He’s alright.”

“Not quite. I’m afraid that whatever pack is around here is trying to hunt him down. Just today, when I came to his house to meet him and discuss the situation, a vamp broke into the attic. I fended it off, but…”

“You let it get away?”

“In my defense, I was aiming for the head.”

“You were _aiming_.” The disappointment dripped off of his words and coalesced in a small puddle on the floor. He then shrugged, saying, “But, either way, you’re a fine hunter and you’re here, and you want my help in finding this den.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Ken removed a small leather journal, not unlike the one Kirk had, from the inside of his jacket. Dozens of road maps and other small scraps of paper stuck out from between the pages. “I’ve got a map here with what I’m almost certain are the locations of the main dens in the area.” Once found and unfolded, one map in particular showed an overall plan of the Twin Cities, with red lines indicating routes of some sort. On the other side, a map of specifically Hastings was printed, with red X’s marking the presumed locations of dens. A circle had been drawn in blue around one area of the city, with a handwritten note under it that said, “important! -must investigate”.

“This cemetery here” -Ken pointed to the circled area- “is my main concern right now. I would’ve gone straight to it the night I met Kirk, but just as I was on my way I got an emergency call from someone in Green Bay. I got stuck out there for the last three days, and so instead of helping the kid out I gave him a trusted friend’s number to relay the message.”

“Why’re you so adamant about this cemetery in particular?”

“Observation, odd goings-on around in and around it. Just last week, three graves were found dug up, and one of John Francis’s prized hogs was found dismembered and bloodless.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s with all the dead animals?” Cliff flipped through Ken’s journal. “Kirk said something about that; do you have any kind of theory?”

“That's the one part that escapes me, at least in terms of motive. Of course they eat animals raw, everyone knows that. I just have no idea what would drive them to leave the carcasses lying around in the streets. Something about the way they’ve been acting has changed. It’s like they’ve gone _feral_. One that I dealt with wouldn’t even speak to me, it only hissed and growled. I want to get to the bottom of it.”

“I’m thinking we stake out the cemetery den tomorrow, provided the weather holds.”

“It should. In that case-”

A shrill scream pierced the air, muffled as though coming from a hidden room. Ken, and everyone else in the bar, including the band’s singer, who had stopped playing anyway to give a heart-to-heart with the audience, went quiet all at once. 

Very faintly, a sound like a large weight being dropped echoed through the bar, emanating from the very, very back.

Immediately six people were on their feet, Cliff and Ken included. Ken had a small handgun drawn, pulled from somewhere in the recesses of his jacket’s inside pockets. Slowly the impromptu group stalked towards the backrooms of the bar, ears pricked up and nerves on high alert.

The backrooms stood secluded behind a half-partition, which concealed a hallway of identical rooms intended for truly unholy things. The door of the second room had been opened ever so slightly, letting a thin crack of light stream into the dim hall. A man in the front of the pack approached the door and opened it slowly, keeping his weapon of choice drawn and close to him. He turned to the group and gave a quick, silent nod in their direction. Without a second thought he threw the door open. 

There were three entities in the room, and one of them was very, very dead, eyes wide and neck split open, blood seeping onto the poor excuse for carpeting. One stood holding up the body by its arms, so that the victim was half-lying on the floor, and the other stood over the body, bloodied knife in hand, a rather dazed expression drawn out on its face.

Nobody moved. 

Everyone in the room exchanged glances, frightened eyes darting to meet one another. 

The figure with the knife lunged for the man in the front of the pack, fangs bared. The man, just barely fast enough on his draw, released four shots into the vampire’s stomach. Jerking backwards from the bullets’ impact, the vampire collapsed, bleeding heavily but still alive. The other hunters gathered around it, weapons drawn, ensuring that it wouldn’t escape.

Ken and Cliff turned their attention on the other vampire, still standing dumbly and holding up its victim. In an instant it dropped the body and ran for the back of the room, vaulting straight through a tiny, utterly pointless window and ducking into the alleyway. Ken went through first, awkwardly jostling his broad shoulders through the miniscule opening while trying not to cut his arms open on the jagged glass. Cliff hesitated for but half a second, checking back on the larger group with the other vampire, before he climbed through. 

By the time Cliff had gotten into the alley Ken was half a street ahead, closing in on the runaway vamp. Cliff darted out of the alley and into the street, following Ken down the darkened avenue. Ken, meanwhile, hot on the vamp’s heels, took a running leap and tackled the vampire, throwing the both of them down hard on the pavement. 

Ken took the vampire’s head in his hands and thrusted down, slamming its head into the concrete. Thick, congealing blood leaked from the vampire’s nose, spilling over the rest of its face as it hit the pavement again. As Ken lifted its head up again the vampire suddenly got the upper hand of its attacker. It spun around and grabbed Ken by the shoulders, flashing its yellowed fangs. 

Cliff barely made it in time. Ken’s shoulder was torn open, the flesh exposed. The vampire took one more vicious bite before it caught sight of Cliff.

For a moment the two stared at each other. The words hitched in Cliff’s throat, his breathing shallow. Even in the dim light the wound appeared gory and grisly, like that from a wild animal. Eyes locked on the vampire, Cliff managed to choke out, “Get the fuck off of him.”

The vampire didn’t react at first. It gazed back at him, seemingly unaware of the command. Bloodshot eyes with dilated pupils flicked between Cliff, Ken, who was still on the ground twitching with pain, and a third object in between all of them, something silvery that reflected the light of the streetlamps. Ken’s handgun, discarded in the attack.

A guttural growl emerged from within the vampire’s throat. It leaned backwards, settling on its haunches, as though calibrating its systems.

Cliff dived for the gun right as the vampire leapt forward. He rolled on his side and came up resting on one knee. The vampire, in its strike, had overshot its target by about a yard. Like lightning it jumped back onto its feet and faced Cliff, only to be met instead with two bullets, one through the heart and one through the skull.

“Hey, thanks,” Ken said weakly. 

“Shit,” mumbled Cliff, turning his attention back to Ken. “Shit! Ken! Jesus Christ, are you alright?”

“He- he took a lot out of me. Fuck…” Ken clutched his mutilated shoulder. “It was like the time when I was a kid, and dad took me hunting.”

Cliff took off his jacket and shirt, tearing the latter in two and pressing it to the wound. “Yeah?”

“It wasn’t _hunting_ hunting, it was an actual hunting trip. I got attacked by a fox. I’ll never forget how it tore into me. Such a small thing, with such small teeth, and yet I had to get seven stitches, right up my arm.”

“Keep talking, keep your mind off the pain.”

Ken stood up slowly, placing his hand over Cliff’s on his shoulder. “It wasn’t too long after that trip that he told me about vampires. And then, six years later, I met one.” He shook his head at the memory. “If it weren’t for that fox I might not have ended up where I am now.”

“For better or worse?”

“Better. If I could go back and shoot that fox I would in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t you like hunting?”

“It’s a dirty, dirty business,” Ken sighed. “Sure, it’s thrilling, and all the tracking down and note-keeping makes you feel like Jim Rockford, but at the end of the day all you’re left with is another dead vampire on the cold pavement. I wouldn’t give it up for the world, but if someone gave me the chance to leave hunting behind…” 

Both mens’ eyes turned to the dead vampire, lying in a pool of blood more black than red.

“... I would take them up on that offer.”


	3. Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cliff pulled the binoculars out of their bag and handed them to Kirk, whose stare remained unbroken. Body rigid, he focused the lenses, turning them ever so slightly until the image was clear enough to make out. He whipped his head around, eyes scanning the rest of the cemetery, then turned back to his view on the house.
> 
> “Cliff, I think someone’s here.”

There was a weight on Cliff’s chest.

He didn’t realize it at first, being that he was still asleep and all. It just felt like sweet, sweet warmth, enveloping him in a sea of tranquility, like waves that washed over him and then retreated, as though afraid of their comforting ability.

The warmth shifted unexpectedly, breaking its constant presence. It was a very slight movement, but enough to half-rouse Cliff from his dreamy state. Only then did he begin to register that there was something on top of him, something very warm that moved every now and then. Not only that, his arm was wrapped around it affectionately, holding the warmth close to him.

Cliff craned his neck, trying to deduce whatever it was that was on top of him. At the bottom of his peripheral vision a sort of black mass came into view. The mass moved again, this time settling into the nape of his neck.

_Kirk._

The smaller man was curled up against Cliff, halfway on top of him and halfway not, one arm affectionately strewn across Cliff’s chest. His breathing was slow, gentle, like a quiet maritime breeze. 

Respite. A welcome presence in Cliff’s fast-paced world. What with all the time he spent on the road, between his job and hunting, and all the extra cases he picked up while on the road for work, he never seemed to find a moment of solemn quiet such as this, where his mind was empty and he was still, unmoving. He hadn’t slept so well in some time, as least as far back as his recent memory went. Especially not _with_ someone. Not since James, anyway...

Carefully, Cliff slipped out from under Kirk’s arm and into the half-hallway between the shower and the rest of the room where the sink and mirror were. God, he looked terrible. Eyes rimmed with dark bluish circles gazed, first at themselves, at the miniscule cut on his left cheekbone, and then to the larger but bandaged gash across his left shoulder. They landed again on a rubber band, which he used to pull his hair back into a rough ponytail.

“Cliff?” Kirk’s voice was faint, strained. “Are you here? What time is it?”

Cliff turned back to Kirk, who was now sitting knees to his chest, hiding under his hair. “7:30.” He blocked the sink’s drain and turned the cold tap on full force. “Did you sleep alright?”

Kirk paused. “...yeah, I fell asleep a while after you left. Why were you out so late?”

“I met your samaritan, Ken. He said he found a den, and he gave me his journal to borrow. Unfortunately for him we ran into a couple of vamps at the bar. I got one of them, but it mauled his shoulder and now he’s in the hospital.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. After I took Ken to the ER I went back to get rid of the corpse, but the police had already shown up. I tried to talk them into leaving the scene and letting me just handle it, but they’d already taken the body. I even used my CSI badge, but the chief waved me off.”

“You’re a CSI agent?”

“Of course not. It’s fake, just like all the other IDs I have.”

“How many other-”

Cliff shut off the tap, a pond of icy water now formed. “Look in my duffel bag. Outer pocket.” In a swift yet ungraceful move he plunged his face into the water. 

Kirk slunk off the bed and to where Cliff’s bag had been propped up against the desk that every hotel room seemed to have for some unknown reason. A pull of a zipper revealed dozens of leather-bound ID badges; about a third claimed that Cliff was a member of a various government agency, another third labeled him as paramilitary and older than he probably was, and the other third were empty, spares.

“Isn’t this illegal?”

Water dripped onto the cold hotel tiles. “Half of everything I do is illegal.” 

“What- what do you even _do_?”

More dripping. “Delivery. I spend most nights on the road, and so I catch a lot of vamp cases around the northern Midwest. The badges are just so I can walk up to a crime scene and not have to explain why I’m there. It makes tracing a lot easier.”

“And no one’s ever caught you with a fake badge?”

“You’d be surprised.” Cliff toweled his face off and went to where Kirk was. “C’mon, you need to eat. We can talk in the car.”

####

Kirk stared quietly at the house just beyond the cemetery’s black iron fence, dark and strangely Southern in design for this area, with its wrap-around porch and half-rotted shutters. “Why would someone build their house by a cemetery?”

Cliff shrugged. “Probably predates it. The location is still very weird. Unless this land was farmland once I don’t know why they would build it so far out of town.”

“Hm.” Kirk looked down, reading the inspection on one of the headstones in his peripheral vision. “What do we do now?”

“Well, you say you’ve done this before, haven’t you? We walk around and we watch that house. If someone comes around and asks I usually tell them I’m a birdwatcher.” 

Kirk’s withdrawn stare suddenly focused on a minute detail of the house. “Birdwatcher… can I see your binoculars?”

Cliff pulled the binoculars out of their bag and handed them to Kirk, whose stare remained unbroken. Body rigid, he focused the lenses, turning them ever so slightly until the image was clear enough to make out. He whipped his head around, eyes scanning the rest of the cemetery, then turned back to his view on the house.

“Cliff, I think someone’s here.”

“What do you mean? _Where_?”

“I dunno- but someone’s giving some kind of signal through that window, and…”

Cliff began to speak but hesitated. Distantly, the sound of footsteps on dead grass echoed between the rows of headstones and pines. They were accompanied by gruff shouting, something or other about getting on the ground or being taken alive.

A dozen reflexes snapped in Cliff’s body. Like lightning he grabbed Kirk’s shoulders and slammed the both of them down on the ground, crouched behind a headstone. The footsteps dashed past their location, first one pair and then what sounded like a group of three or four after it. 

“Don’t jump that fence,” came a voice from the larger group of footsteps, “or we _will_ shoot.”

Clearly, whoever was warned against crossing the fence didn’t listen, because half a second later a flurry of gunshots erupted. The bullets cracked against both the fence and a few unlucky headstones, but ultimately never hit their target, judging from the irritated grumbling that followed.

“Dammit,” said the first voice again. A radio crackled before it continued, “Requesting backup, Park Lane cemetery, possible hostage situation. Bring CSI… And just who the hell are you two?”

The owner of the voice, a broad-shouldered and eagle-eyed policeman, was suddenly standing above Kirk and Cliff. Kirk's eyes met the officer’s first. “We-” he tried to speak.

Cliff elbowed Kirk in the ribs and pulled out an ID badge with his other arm. “Cliff Burton, San Francisco Police Department.”

“And you’re on the ground because…?”

“I heard running and gunshots.”

“Why were you here to begin with?”

Cliff’s brain raced, desperately putting together snippets of things he’d heard and read and condensing them into an alibi. “Looking into the disappearance of Ann-Marie Holmes. I got a tip from someone who said there might be a lead here.”

“And him?”

“Just a friend.”

The policeman scoffed. “I don’t buy it, kid. You’re an undercover cop from California, and you came here so- what? You could do our job, in a place where you have no jurisdiction, and then, what, come and tell us about it?”

Cliff nodded uncertainly. “I suppose.”

“How do I know this badge is even real, eh? Who’s to say you’re not just a couple of hooligans who came here to, I dunno, dig up another grave and leave a dead buck lyin’ around?”

“You can call my superior. He’ll be happy to tell you that it’s much real, and that I’m a real officer as well.”

“Yeah, right. Either way, you’re both coming with me. I want to get out of here before the firefirght starts.”

And so, as a small legion of officers invaded the cemetery and closed in on the dark house, Kirk found himself being dragged alongside Cliff first into the back of a cop car, then the station itself, then to the office of one Sergeant Martin Hawfield. It was a rather threatening office, Kirk noted to himself, since Hawfield’s idea of decor was a bookshelf crammed only with war fiction and serial killer biographies, a gun rack, and a pair of crisscrossing machetes directly behind his desk.

“Hey, Cliff,” he spoke, trying not to let his panic get to him. “Why does your police badge have your real name on it, instead of some made-up one like all your others?”

“My police badge is real, actually. I used to be a police officer. In a way I guess I still am.”

“But- you don’t really do police stuff, do you? You said you did delivery. If that guy calls your police chief, won’t he find out that you’re not there anymore?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got falsified records, provided by a friend still on the force.”

This stunned Kirk momentarily. “Falsified-”

“Like I said, half of everything I do is illegal. My life is a paper trail held together by lies and fake identities, and a few friends willing to risk their lives to keep me going. If every person I’ve ever flashed a badge on started connecting dots I’d go to prison for the rest of my life. Believe me, I know there’s an easier way to do all of this, but Ja- someone I once knew threw me into this rabbit hole of lying and hiding, and now I’m too far down to get out of it.”

“Oh,” was all Kirk said in reply.

“It’s fine.” Cliff swung his arm over Kirk and onto the back of his adjacent chair, hand halfway over Kirk's shoulder. “If I make it a couple more years I’ve come up with a plan to try to cut off some of the trails left by my aliases.”

Kirk sighed, eyes returning to a neutral, downward glance.

“Are you alright?”

“Uhm…” Kirk dipped his head, hair falling over his eyes. Internally he was on the verge of a mild panic attack, and he prayed that it wasn’t visually obvious. “I dunno. I just feel like everything is happening so _fast_. Like, four days ago I was debating whether or not to quit my job at the ag store because I thought my manager was a vampire, and then I met you, and now I’m about to get interrogated by a police sergeant, and…” He let the sentence fade out. “I feel like my entire life’s been redirected, and that I can’t go back to my old life. Like, this is my new life.”

“It could be.”

Kirk returned his eyes to Cliff. “What do you mean?”

“When all of this is over, you could come with me. Become a hunter.”

“You’d want that?”

“I mean, you’ve got the chops for it. I’ve read through your notebook. You said yourself your observations are a little distant and limited but, at the very least, you know a lot more about the vampiric world than the average person.”

“... I’d like that. To come with you.”

The double meaning hung in the air until it hit Cliff- Kirk didn’t just want to join him for the hunting aspect. He wanted to join _him_. Period. 

Somewhere, in the back of Cliff’s mind, a caricature blond-haired man grinned and said, “Told you so,” to no one other than himself. 

The turning of the door’s desperately-in-need-of-oiling brass knob broke the silent moment between Kirk and Cliff, startling them both. Hawfield strode into his office, a stack of folders under his arm, brandishing a silver key that he used to unlock the handcuffs holding both mens’ left wrists to their chairs.

“Sorry about that, Mr Burton,” he said, pocketing the cuffs. The folders hit the desk loudly. “Just spoke with your chief. He was quite enthused to tell me about your records. I don’t suppose you’ll hold this against me.”

Cliff made an apathetic gesture with his hands. “Standard precaution, I get it.”

“Now, anyway, why was that you were in the Park Lane Cemetery?”

“The disappearance of Ann-Marie Holmes.”

“Ah, right, yes.” Hawfield pulled out a folder from the middle of the stack and flipped through it. “The fourth in the last thirty days alone. The mayor’s gonna impose a curfew tonight. He’s been freaking out about these disappearances, trying to reassure the townsfolk that everything’s gonna be alright and that we’ll keep ‘em all safe. Of course I’ve been head over heels in paperwork, and complaints, and our damn private investigators, who can’t seem to investigate jack shit.

“Now” -Hawfield closed the folder and handed it to Cliff across the desk- “what exactly have you uncovered so far?”

“You’re letting me have the case file?”

“At this point I trust you better to solve the case than _Agent Jim Brooks_ … So?”

“So. Well, I need to ask you something in order to answer that. Do you have a forensic lab here?”

“Down in the basement.”

“Have there been any- how do I put this…”

“Have we gotten any dead sons of guns who might be part of these missing cases? One so far that we’ve ruled as a suspect. Do you want to see him?”

“Can you take me there?”

“You only.”

Cliff noted Kirk, who replied, “I’ll just wait outside for you.” He took the folder from Cliff and left, cringing again at the sound of the doorknob. 

“Right then, this way.” Hawfield led Cliff down the main hallway and to an elevator in the very last room. There was only one button, which Hawfield pressed impatiently. They waited for slightly longer than reasonably expected for the doors to open; when they did, an air vent installed right above the doors’ upper threshold activated, blowing cold, sterile air onto Cliff as he entered.

“What’s the vent for?” Cliff asked as Hawfield pressed the button for the lower level.

“Minor decontamination. Shakes off any dirt or debris that would be loose enough to contaminate a body. One thing, you’ll need to wear gloves when you get down there.”

“Of course.”

If the air from the vent did anything, it gave a sense of the atmosphere of the lab proper. The air was cool and smelled of bleach; every surface was clean to the point of shine and reflection; the lights, more on the bluish side than yellow, were just a bit too bright, making the linoleum flooring and plastic walls seem brighter than they really were. 

After a brief explanation from Hawfield, one scientist gave Cliff a pair of gloves and led him to where the bodies were kept. She pulled back the tarp covering one particular body on its cot, and Cliff felt a pang of fear in his chest.

It was that same vamp from the night before, the one he’d shot in the street after it mauled Ken. Its ferocious glare was gone, eyes forever closed shut, but its mouth remained slightly open, unnaturally sharp teeth scarcely visible. 

“We haven’t been able to identify him by blood, but fingerprint evidence connects him to at least three murders around the area,” the scientist explained.

“You haven’t identified him?”

“Strictly by blood sample, no.”

Cliff more or less knew the answer he would get, but he still asked, “Why’s that?”

“We’re not quite sure. Multiple tests show a different blood type each time, and while the blood technically matches samples found at the crime scene, we can’t be sure that it’s an exact match just yet. The samples also simply don’t match anyone in our database. I haven’t yet ruled out if it’s purely because of the inconsistencies or if he’s just someone outside the system.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to look over him a bit, to see if he doesn’t match any eyewitness descriptions.”

“Be my guest.”

Clif waited until the scientist left before he pulled back the tarp down more, exposing the vampire’s chest. Deftly, he unzipped the small pocket on the vampire’s left breast and took out the wallet that was inside of it. He searched through it quickly, the nerve on the back of his neck heightening in fear that the scientist would return at any moment and catch him robbing a dead body. Thankfully, though, he found something that fit into the concept of what he was looking for, and slipped the wallet back into its pocket.

Just then, Hawfield came up to Cliff and regarded the dead vampire.

“You know,” he said, “there’s something about all of these cases, and all these punks that we’ve arrested and found dead. It’s like… well, now that I say it out loud it sounds ridiculous, but I’ll tell you, if I didn’t know much better, I’d swear that this guy, and that other one over there, I’d swear they were _vampires_.”  
Another pang of fear hit Cliff’s chest, but this one more resembled the kind of fear you felt when you heard someone saying your name, but you weren’t sure if it was you they were talking to or someone else with the same name as you. 

“Vampires?” he asked, trying to make it sound like a foreign concept to him.

“I know, it sounds ridiculous. Of course they aren’t vampires. Vampires aren’t real, just like that Bigfoot thing that Davin Marlowe keeps trying to sell t-shirts of down at the general store. Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Oh, you’re alright,” Cliff waved it off. 

-Vampires aren’t real? Thought Cliff as he spoke to Hawfield. -Oh, if only I could tell you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year y'all ;)


End file.
